“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32

“You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6

“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise
of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
~ Dr. Seuss

“You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic,
even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed.
The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiment and experience,
the illusion of oneself as a separate ego.”
~ Alan Watts

“People can’t be talked out of illusions. If a person believes that the earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that, he knows that it’s flat. He’ll go down to the window and see that its obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him that it isn’t is to say, “Well let’s go and find the edge”
~ Alan Watts

“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. This is—rather literally—to be spellbound”.
~ Alan Watts

“If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi

“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32

“You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6

“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

You are not what you think you are:
You are not a person, or a personality.
You are not a body, or a nobody.
You are not your mind, or your thoughts.You are infinite Eternal Awareness.
You are the screen, not the movie.
You are Rama, not the drama.
You are the glory, not the story.You are the Whole, not your role.So, wake up, and –
Transcend entity identity!

* Advaita means non-dualism: it is
the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy

Ron’s audio recitation of Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies

Ron’s Commentary: “We are not what we think we are!”
Dear Friends,
We are not what we think we are!
The foregoing crucial quotations and “Advaita-Vedanta* For Dummies” poem emphasize a pivotal spiritual message – that we share common self identity as Cosmic Consciousness or Non-Duality Reality.
And embedded below is an inspiringly important four minute viral video by rapper Makmantis X with over 83 million Facebook views – titled: “This literally made me question everything.” I urge you to carefully consider it!
The video, quotes and poem remind us that we are not who or what we are ‘labeled’ or taught to be, by society or by our mistaken self-perceptions.
We are not merely our mortal bodies – their genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories; we are not the ‘voices in our heads’.
We are immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory ‘space/time’ vehicles. But we’re all the same ‘under the hood’.
What we call “death” is just a vacation – eternal soul vacating temporary physical vehicles. Cosmically, there is no death or time, just Eternal NOW!
May all our sufferings be transformed to universal happiness as we realize and actualize our common identity as Infinite Potentiality, Being, Awareness, Bliss; Eternal Peace, Life, Light – LOVE!
And so it shall be!

“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”
~ Albert Einstein

“According to the Advaita philosophy, ..this Maya or ignorance–or name and form, or, as it has been called in Europe, time, space, and causality–is out of this one Infinite Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge

“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society
that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein

“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
~ Albert Einstein

“The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know.”
“We know truth not by reason only, but by the heart”
“It is the heart which feels God, not the reason.
This then is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason”
~ Blaise Pascal

“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human, the former is a gift from God.”
~ Blaise Pascal

To think or not to think,
that is the question!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“It is only the innocent mind . . . unclouded by experience, totally free from the past; . . . that can perceive what is reality.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

J. Krishnamurti

Cartesian Critique.

Descartes deduced his presumed separate existence with thought.
He reasoned: “I think, therefore I am”.
But wasn’t that putting Descartes before his Source?
Isn’t it apparent that we exist when not thinking?
Isn’t thinking optional, while Being is perpetual?
Why are we called human “beings”, and not human “thinkings”?
Isn’t existence much more than just thinking?
Don’t we exist in thoughtless states?
Doesn’t Being encompass conscious and subconscious
phenomena beyond thought – like emotions, feelings, sounds,
tastes, sensations, moods, dreams, autonomic processes, etc.?
Don’t all thoughts comprise and concern past ideas,
whereas life is ever lived in the Now,
never in the past or the future?
Aren’t we most aware of our existence
when we are thoughtlessly/choicelessly mindful?
What might Descartes say,
if he were here today?

Ron’s Commentary on Confusing Thinking With Being.

Dear Friends,
This essay/poem questioning René Descartes’ famous philosophical proposition: “I think therefore I am.” was written during an extended period of inner reflection following my midlife change of life. Not until then did I ever wonder about how we mistakenly self identify dualistically with the body/mind’s thoughts and story rather than its existential awareness.
Prior to my spiritual opening, I was most influenced and impressed by the world’s “great thinkers”, such as learned philosophers, professors, authors, authorities, and PhD ‘experts’.
But after my spiritual opening and discovery of Eastern non-dualistic mysticism – and especially after meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas – I became and remain most inspired by the world’s greatest non-thinkers: mystics, intuitives and shamans from East, West and indigenous spiritual traditions, and those who in secular life acted humbly, intuitively, and authentically – like my heroes Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein.
Guruji dropped out of school as a child and read very few books during his long life as mostly a wandering sadhu. Yet he was amazingly enlightened, pragmatically wise, intuitive, and prescient and could explain a wide variety of esoteric issues well beyond ordinary scholarly learning. Once when I asked him about an Indian pundit/professor then lecturing in the Bay Area, Guruji replied that the pundit was a very nice man – a “book yogi”.
Guruji’s “book yogi” comment piqued my curiosity about the difference between ‘book yogis’ and meditation yogis like Guruji. Soon I began learning to distinguish experiential learning from conceptual learning and belief; and I prioritized learning from life’s experiences rather than from beliefs, concepts or customs inculcated or acculturated by others. Thus I began to seek relief from belief.
By following Guruji’s instructions to ‘meditate regularly’ I learned that our existence is not dependent upon thinking; that by being “here NOW” with a stilled and thoughtless mind, we can intuitively access inner wisdom ordinarily obscured by ‘the voice in the head’; and, that our intuition facilitates and allows important insights not otherwise attained through worldly logic.
Thus I deeply concur with Albert Einstein’s observation that:“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
Today’s post is offered to remind us to not confuse thinking with being; that Life persists perpetually whether or not we are thinking. And to help remind us to honor and to prioritize our heart’s “sacred gift” of intuition over the rational mind – our “faithful servant”.
May we may thereby be enabled to experientially confirm Blaise Pascal’s foregoing quoted assertion that “It is the heart which feels God, not the reason.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein

“There is no place in . . [Quantum] physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung

“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ Buddha

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha

“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.
It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”.
What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie.
But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist

What is “Reality”?

“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” – like beauty –
is in the eye of the beholder.
It is a mental concept arising in consciousness,
and projected by the beholding self-awareness
onto certain perceived objects.
As rays of sunlight are in essence
the same as the emitting sun source,
perceived “reality” is in essence
the same as the Awareness
from which it originates.
But, because of the “magic mirror” of mind,
“reality” is mistakenly perceived
and objectified as separate and distinct
from the perceiving subject.
So, isn’t it NOW
time to really realize
that “reality” isn’t really real;
That only Awareness is REAL?

Ron’s Reflections on What is “Reality”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what is really “Real”? – or “unreal”?“Reality” and “the real world” are common concepts; frequently used but rarely deeply considered.
According to dictionary definitions, “reality” is that which actually exists as distinguished from that which is merely apparent. So what in this world actually exists? And what in this world may be merely apparent, like a non-existent mirage or a nocturnal dream? – or a virtual or simulated reality?
Through Einstein’s discovery that everything is energy – e=mc2 – he realized that cosmically what we call reality, with our apparent separation from other life-forms, is an “optical illusion of consciousness”.

Similarly, the Buddha tells us that this world is not actually real, but an ‘unreal’ illusion:

“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
Quantum scientists now confirm that the supposedly ‘solid’ reality of our limited perceptions is an ever impermanent energetic illusion – only a virtual, simulated, or relative reality.
For millennia, mystics have told us that our perceived world of countless impermanent forms is a manifestation of ONE eternal and immutable Awareness, which is the only actual existence; that therefore this world of apparent multiplicity is merely an ever impermanent dream-like mental projection of That ONE Awareness, often called samsara or maya.
The quotes and verses above focus on mystical perspectives of “Reality”. They can help explain how in our world of duality – of apparent opposites – our projected mental perspectives determine our perception of “reality”.
Shakespeare tells us that“there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. [ Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2]
Similarly, what appears to us as “real” or “unreal” or as “the real world” depends upon our thinking – the projected mental perspectives of those invoking those concepts.
The realization that our “reality” is merely an impermanent mental projection of immutable universal Awareness can greatly benefit spiritual aspirants. It can help us more and more to self-identify as abiding Awareness – as Eternal spirit, rather than only as mortal physical body/minds. Thereby, we can lead ever happier and fulfilled lives with growing compassion for all other life-forms, and with less and less suffering from unhelpful worldly desires and attachments.
Realization that our precious planet is only a virtual or relative or simulated ‘reality’ need not in any way diminish our awe and gratitude for its immense perfection as part of Nature’s miraculous magnificence, well beyond our comprehension or imagination. Nor need it detract from our wonder about the creation of this magnificence, and our unspeakable gratitude for and appreciation of our precious human body/minds as potentially harmonious life-form manifestations of Nature, to be lovingly and skillfully nurtured by us.
So I offer these posted quotations and poetic suggestions about “reality” versus “unreality” to encourage our deep reflection on those common concepts and, hopefully, to help us find growing happiness and fulfillment in this precious human lifetime on our precious planet Earth.
And so may it be!

“If you could get rid of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi

“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi

Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Voice In My Head?

There’s a voice in my head.
It keeps talking to itself and to me,
Telling me my thoughts,
and telling me what to do,
and sometimes judging me.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
And someone’s always listening to that voice in my head.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
And someone’s always thinking for me.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
If I am that silent voice in my head constantly talking
to itself and to me, am I crazy?
If I was always talking to myself out loud
(without a cell phone at my ear),
I’d be committed to a psychiatric ward.
Sometimes I don’t think at all, and then there’s no voice in my head.
But, I’m still aware and exist and can listen to other things.
So how can I be my thoughts or the voice in my head,
if I’m still here when they’re not there?
So can someone other than that voice in my head please tell me:
Who’s talking? Who’s thinking? Who’s listening?
Who am I?

Ron’s recitation of Voice In My Head

Ron’s Comments on Voice in My Head.
At age forty two I suddenly realized that I was not merely my physical body, its name and story, or its thoughts – the “voice in my head” – but that my true self identity is universal Awareness. That self identity experience was followed by previously unimagined, transformative and unprecedented experiences of peace, inner light, subtle energy and ecstasy.
Prior to that transformative experience, I was largely ignorant of Eastern or other spiritual teachings. But, spurred by great curiosity about what had happened to me, I gradually discovered that many spiritual teachings identified “ego” – our mistaken mental self image about who and what we truly are – as the principal barrier to spiritual “enlightenment”. And – especially from contemporary mindfulness teachings – I learned that identifying with the “voice in the head” was a major symptom of ego’s mistaken self image.
Though at midlife I temporarily transcended ego identity, it has kept recurring while steadily diminishing since then. So I have been experiencing gradual ego attrition with ever growing happiness and fulfillment. Today I am happier than ever before, but still learning and transforming and rarely identifying with the “voice in my head”.Eckhart Tolle.
Of all contemporary spiritual teachings I’ve read about “ego” and “voice in the head”, I especially endorse those of Eckhart Tolle in which he cogently explains how “thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence”. [see e.g. http://sillysutras.com/what-is-ego/ ]
The foregoing poem about “Voice in My Head” was based on my mystical experiences before I discovered Tolle’s teachings. But Tolle’s teachings about “ego” and “voice in the head” are especially powerful and helpful because they are based upon his extraordinarily powerful permanent spiritual awakening experience. (see http://sillysutras.com/eckhart-tolle-spiritual-awakening-story-and-teachings/)
Because often we can best assimilate and actuate spiritual principles through parables and stories, Eckhart Tolle’s awakening stories can help us comprehend the crucial transformative importance of self identification with eternal Awareness rather than with ego’s “voice in our head”.
In Tolle’s noteworthy book, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Chapter Two, he observes that “Some people never forget the first time they disidentified from their thoughts and thus briefly experienced the shift in identity from being the content of their mind to being the awareness in the background.”
Whereupon he narrates his own such experience which happened several years before his dramatic permanent awakening experience. It is hereafter excerpted, with my sincere recommendation that if interested you read and reflect on Tolle’s teachings.THE VOICE IN THE HEAD – excerpted from A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

That first glimpse of awareness came to me when I was a first year
student at the University of London. I would take the tube (subway) twice a
week to go to the university library, usually around nine o’clock in the
morning, toward the end of the rush hour. One time a woman in her early
thirties sat opposite me. I had seen her before a few times on that train. One
could not help but notice her. Although the train was full, the seats on either
side of her were unoccupied, the reason being, no doubt, that she appeared to
be quite insane. She looked extremely tense and talked to herself incessantly
in a loud and angry voice. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she was
totally unaware, it seemed, of other people or her surroundings. Her head
was facing downward and slightly to the left, as if she were addressing
someone sitting in the empty seat next to her. Although I don’t remember the
precise content, her monologue went something like this: “And then she said
to me… so I said to her you are a liar how dare you accuse me of… when
you are the one who has always taken advantage of me I trusted you and you
betrayed my trust…” There was the angry tone in her voice of someone who
has been wronged, who needs to defend her position lest she become
annihilated.
As the train approached Tottenham Court Road Station, she stood up
and walked toward the door with still no break in the stream of words
coming out of her mouth. That was my stop too, so I got off behind her. At
street level, she began to walk toward Bedford Square, still engaged in her
imaginary dialogue, still angrily accusing and asserting her position. My
curiosity aroused, I decided to follow her as long as she was walking in the
same general direction I had to go in. Although engrossed in her imaginary
dialogue, she seemed to know where she was going. Soon we were within
sight of the imposing structure of Senate House, a 1930’s highrise, the
university’s central administrative building and library. I was shocked. Was it
possible that we were going to the same place? Yes, that’s’ where she was
heading. Was she a teacher, student, an office worker, a librarian? Maybe she
was some psychologist’s research project. I never knew the answer. I walked
twenty steps behind her, and by the time I entered the building (which
ironically was the location of the headquarters of the “Mind Police” in the
film version of George Orwell’s novel, 1984), she had already been
swallowed up by one of the elevators.
I was somewhat taken aback by what I had just witnessed. A mature
first year student at twenty five, I saw myself as an intellectual in the
making, and I was convinced that all the answers to the dilemmas of human
existence could be found through the intellect, that is to say, by thinking. I
didn’t realize yet that thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of
human existence. I looked upon the professors as sages who had all the
answers and upon the university as the temple of knowledge. How could an
insane person like her be part of this?
I was still thinking about her when I was in the men’s room prior to
entering the library. As I was washing my hands, I thought: I hope I don’t
end up like her. The man next to me looked briefly in my direction, and I
suddenly was shocked when I realized that I hadn’t just thought those words,
but mumbled them aloud. “Oh my God, I’m already like her,” I thought.
Wasn’t my mind as incessantly active as hers? There were only minor
differences between us. The predominant underlying emotion behind her
thinking seemed to be anger. In my case, it was mostly anxiety. She thought
out loud. I thought – mostly – in my head. If she was mad, then everyone
was mad, including myself. There were differences in degree only.
The above incident not only gave me a first glimpse of awareness, it
also planted the first doubt as to the absolute validity of the human intellect.
A few months later, something tragic happened that made my doubt grow. On
a Monday morning, we arrived for a lecture to be given by a professor whose
mind I admired greatly, only to be told that sadly he had committed suicide
sometime during the weekend by shooting himself. I was stunned. He was a
highly respected teacher and seemed to have all the answers. However, I
could as yet see no alternative to the cultivation of thought. I didn’t realize
yet that thinking is only a tiny aspect of the consciousness that we are, nor
did I know anything about the ego, let alone being able to detect it within
myself.

“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at the edge of the roof.”
~ Rumi

“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”. . . “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message

Introduction.
In 1990, when the Voyager space craft was nearly four trillion (4,000,000,000,000) miles from Earth, beyond the orbit of Pluto, NASA finally acceded to Carl Sagan’s desperate pleas and turned Voyager’s camera back toward Earth to photograph our precious planet as no human had ever before seen it.
From that distance, the Earth is just a small blue speck illuminated by sunlight.Video.
Here is a video called “Pale Blue Dot” with Carl Sagan reading a poignant message he wrote while reflecting on that NASA photo:

Text of Sagan’s message:

“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

Concluding Comment.
In these ecologically critical times may we all cherish our precious Earth Mother – Gaia. May we thereby – each from our unique perspective and in our unique way – urgently act to help Humankind address and peacefully resolve the immense ecological, political, and economic crises and conflicts threatening Earth-life as we have known it
And so may it be!

“In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching,
although it comes in many forms. . . .
~ Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now

“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth … The words are no more than signposts.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – Stillness Speaks

￼

Eckhart Tolle.

Ron’s Introduction.Eckhart Tolle is an influential contemporary spiritual writer and teacher, whose teachings – which I endorse – have reached millions worldwide. I first discovered Tolle only after I had stopped attending spiritual public programs and retreats and had transitioned from being a “born again Hindu” to an“uncertain Undo” – a still continuing life phase of reliance on inner rather than outer authority. (see e.g. “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”)
By then, I was able to experientially understand and deeply appreciate the authenticity of Tolle’s teachings and spiritual awakening story, and the cogency of his message. Because of Tolle’s verbal acuity and clarity he is often quoted on SillySutras.com.
Especially during this age of mental malaise when millions of people suffer from deep despondency and depression, and suicides are rife, I am sharing Eckhart Tolle’s inspiring spiritual awakening story, so that it may help us or others we know who may be psychologically challenged or despondent, to find lasting inner happiness and love.
On the brink of suicide, Tolle had a miraculous spiritual awakening which permanently ended his psychological suffering rather than his human life. Thereafter he miraculously became a renowned spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now and other noteworthy books.
Often we can best assimilate and actuate spiritual principles through parables and stories. So Eckhart Tolle’s history and powerful awakening story – posted below – can help us comprehend the crucial transformative importance of self identification with eternal Awareness rather than with ego’s “voice in our head”. And I encourage you to read and reflect on it.Tolle’s History of Anxiety, Fear and Depression Before His Spiritual Awakening.
Tölle was born on February 16, 1948 in Lünen, a small German town near Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley. He grew up in a dysfunctional household, where his incompatible Catholic parents were constantly bickering. Tölle’s early childhood was fraught with anxiety and fear, and he felt alienated from a perceived hostile school environment. Sometimes instead of going to school he would bicycle to the woods and sit amidst nature, which he loved.
Eventually his parents separated, and his father left Germany to live in Spain. Later, at the age of thirteen, Tölle moved to Spain to live with his father. In Spain, Tölle refused to go to school any longer. Though not rebellious he could no longer tolerate a hostile school environment. Tolle’s unconventional ‘open minded’ father did not insist that his son attend high school, and permitted him to elect home studies of literature, astronomy and various languages.
At the age fifteen, Tolle synchronistically received and read several books written by a German mystic known as Bô Yin Râ, which “very deeply” affected him. With an aptitude for languages, he quickly learned Spanish, English, and some French. Still, he spent much solitary time, free of the external pressures of the environment or the culture.
At age nineteen, about ten years before his “inner awakening”, Tölle moved to England, where he lived for about thirty years until emigrating to Canada in the mid-1990’s. During his first three years in England, he had no formal education, and supported himself by teaching German and Spanish at a London school for language studies.
Then, troubled by “depression, anxiety and fear”, he began “searching for answers” which he believed he could find only through intellect rather than intuition.
In his early twenties, Tolle decided to pursue his search by studying philosophy, psychology, and literature. After taking preparatory evening classes, he was ‘fast-tracked’ and permitted to enroll in the University of London. Upon graduating, he was offered and accepted a scholarship to do postgraduate research. Soon thereafter, at age twenty nine, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening and dropped out of academic studies.Tolle’s Spiritual Awakening Story.
(Excerpted from The Power of Now: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment )

Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. `Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the `I’ and the `self’ that `I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words “resist nothing,” as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I Opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all.
That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had.
I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.
But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.
Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: “I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?” And I would say: “You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.”

Ron’s Comments.
Tolle’s profound awakening experience credibly demonstrates how our greatest fears and sufferings can hide our highest potentials, yet provide immense evolutionary opportunities – revealing that beyond our minds we can find intuitive fulfillment of our deepest aspirations for love, peace and joy, and realization of previously unimagined human potentials.
Tolle’s teachings focus on transforming self identity “from being the content of [the] mind to being the awareness in the background”. While Tolle claims to have experienced a permanent awakening to self-identity as awareness, such one-time experiences are extremely rare. However, numerous people’s mystical awakening experiences – like mine – can trigger a gradual transformative process of evolutionary purification and ego attrition, with ever increasing benefits.
At age forty two – like Tolle – I experienced previously unimagined and transformative self identity as universal Awareness, followed by unprecedented experiences of peace and ecstasy. But my mistaken ego identity was not thereby completely dissolved and it kept recurring. Instead of experiencing permanent peace, for many years I have been experiencing gradual ego attrition with ever growing happiness and fulfillment. So today I am happier than ever before, but still learning and transforming.
At the time of his awakening experience Tolle was largely unfamiliar with spiritual texts and spiritual teachers. But after exploring such literature for several years, he concluded “that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me.” And that: “In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”
Though I am unqualified to evaluate Tolle’s representations and opinions, I do regard him as authentic and sincerely well intentioned, and I endorse his teachings. Only because I endorse many Tolle quotations have I posted them on SillySutras.com. to help others. And only because I find Tolle’s teachings valuable do I recommend them for your consideration.
For example, I very much appreciate this introduction to Tolle’s excellent second book, Stillness Speaks:“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth … The words are no more than signposts.”
Before ever learning about Tolle, I had realized the power of now and, via my imagined inner guide and some-time pseudonym, Swami Rononandonananda, I had written various poems and sutra sayings harmonious and consistent with Tolle’s teachings, like

Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Life is a word game:
Adding a few syllables to the Ineffable,
we play the word game of life
until we find and become THAT –
Silence that says ALL.
******
There’s nothing to say,
but words point the way.
So, let’s elevate our spiritual “lexi-consciousness.”
******
“Speak little; say much.”
~ Swami Ron Onandonananda

Also, for your amusement and edification, here is my whimsical poem called Egocide which is quite consistent with Tolle’s awakening experience and teachings:Egocide

Ego’s attrition
is our mission;
Egocide’s our goal.
When ego’s dead
we’ll lose all dread,
Knowing we are Soul.
Then we’ll say
that life’s a play,
Each body/mind a role;
That we’re the Glory
and not the story,
Not just parts – but Whole!

Moral of the Story. “Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
May everyone, everywhere
find and transcend all inner barriers
and be happy!
And so may it be!

“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
~ Socrates

“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, citing Tibetan Book of the Dead.

“Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.”
~ Gautama Buddha

“And it is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to eternal life.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, peace prayer, edited by Ron Rattner

“Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now… and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche

“Birth and death are virtual,
but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Ron’s Introductory Commentary on Knowing Death to Know Life.
Hundreds of Silly Sutras stories, poems, essays, aphorisms, memoirs, and quotations are dedicated to helping raise our collective spiritual consciousness, and to enabling us to live happier lives, both individually and societally.
Paradoxically many such postings intended to help us live happier lives, address death and dying.
Physical death is inevitable and natural. But most people fear death, believing it ends life. In much of American society dying is largely a taboo subject, with euphemistic language used to describe death. And Americans usually die in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by family.
For millennia traditional societies have recognized inevitable physical death as part of life, and have evolved elaborate traditions and teachings about death. For example, ancient Egyptians and Tibetans have codified such teachings in ‘Books of the Dead’. My Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, ran away from home at age thirteen in search of experiential answers to the inextricably interrelated eternal questions of “Who am I?” and “What is death?”.
To help us transcend fear of death and dying, I have included below the poem Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death, and an excellent embedded documentary The Tibetan Book of the Dead, narrated by Leonard Cohen, together with its narrative text.
The video was produced in two parts by NHK Japanese TV, and includes authentic footage of Tibetan death teachings and practices in Ladakh and statements by the Dalai Lama. If you can’t find time to watch it, I recommend you read the partial narrative which is eloquently expressed in the film by Leonard Cohen.
May these teachings help enable us to lose the fear of leaving life and gain the art of living life.
And so may it be!Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death.

In phenomenal polarity reality
the idea of life, implies the idea of death.
All that appears disappears.
So, to live and to know earth-life,
we must experience and know earth-death.
But to Know and to Be that Consciousness
which is eternally aware of both earth-life and earth-death,
is to know that, beyond all appearance and disappearance,
There is no death –
only That which Knows.
So, to truly know Life is to Know Death.
And to truly know death
is to Know that there is no death.

Ron’s audio recitation of Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death.

Although everything on Earth seems stable and solid, nothing here is permanent. Like water, snow and ice, life is always shifting and changing form. All existence is one kind of state or another. This means living in an atmosphere of uncertainty – moving without a place to rest.
In this world, we pass through the spiritual state of physical existence. Here, we want to make something lasting and secure, but no one has been able to accomplish this. Our life is always in the hands of death. At death, our experience is completely out of our control. Our experience is completely naked.
What is the best path through this spiritual state? It is a question of waking up right now, looking at our own mind. Look at it when it is calm and still and when it is running wild. This is what Buddha did and what he taught. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Soon we all will die. All our hopes and fears will be irrelevant.
Out of luminous continuity of existence, which has no origin and which has never died, human beings project all the images of life and death, terror and joy, demons and gods. These images become our complete reality. We submit without thinking to their dance. In all the movements to this dance, we project our greatest fears on death and we make every effort to ignore it.
Illusions are as various as the moon reflecting on a rippling sea. Beings become easily caught in the net of confused pain. We must develop compassion as boundless as the sky so that all may rest in the clear light of our own awareness.
At death, we lose everything we thought was real. Unless we can let go of all the things we cherished in our life we are terrified. We cannot stop struggling to hold on to our old life. All our fear and yearning will drag us into yet another painful reality.
We are always wandering through transitional spiritual states. Difficulty in leaving behind our old life can cause us to wander in painful uncertainty.
The spiritual state of dying lasts from the beginning of the body’s physical collapse until the body and consciousness separate.
While we are living, the elements of Earth, water, fire and air together support and condition our consciousness. Death occurs when this is no longer the case. Now, without the screens and filters of daily life, at this time, mind itself can be seen directly. In the spiritual state of dying, it is important to recognize our own true nature.
At death, there is an experience of piercing luminosity, pure white light, the clear radiance that rises directly from our own basic nature. Now, there is no darkness, no separation, no direction and no shape, only brilliant light. This boundless sparkling radiance is mind, free from the shadows of birth and death – free from any boundaries of any kind.
Now all pervasive light engulfs us completely. All of space is dissolved into pure light. This radiance is the mind of God, the mind of all the awakened ones. Recognizing this is all that is necessary for liberation from birth and rebirth. If we do not recognize our divine nature, a dreamless sleep will happen.
In three days time, all emotions will be vivid and intense. Though it seems we are entering into a new reality, it is still the reality of our own mind.
Wandering back to the familiar sites and people of our old life, our own mind will arise before us in unfamiliar ways. We may not know if we are alive or dead. Even so, we may see our family crying. We must leave our former life behind if we are to progress.
If the we are unable to recognize the luminosity of mind itself, our experience now takes the shape of random imagery of our former life. We see our friends and relatives calling out to us and they cannot hear our replies. Death has cut us off from them and sorrow strikes our heart. We see our family and relatives crying. We can see our bed but we are no longer the one lying there. Instead, there is a corpse.
Soon we will experience the intense presence of our own emotional states as peaceful and raging light forms. Now, we will meet our mind in the form of projections which seem vivid and entirely real. Now we will see penetrating blue light shining all around us. This is the essence of consciousness, God (Buddha). The wisdom of God is like a mirror reflecting everything. God is the form of consciousness in its complete purity. This wisdom is inseparable from our own heart. But also we will see a diffused white light which we must avoid if we are to achieve liberation. If we follow the allure of the soft white light, we will find ourselves ensnared in the temporary pleasures of being born as a god, living in Lordly ignorance of the passage of time and subject to unexpected death.
If this path is taken, the wisdom of our very heart and mind takes the form of spiritual entities. There will be peaceful spiritual entities that emanate from our heart and wrathful ones that emerge from our brain.
They will appear one by one and then all together. The peaceful spiritual entities are complete and immovable. If we cannot bear to enter their vast benevolent space, if we cannot let go of self-centeredness and fear, these deities will become terrifying wrathful ones. If we recognize them as an expression of our own mind, they are the unsparing face of wakefulness.
The wrathful forms emerging from the brain appear before us actually and clearly as if they were real in their own right. The terror and anger we feel are our own efforts to evade from being completely awake. We wander uncertainly in the landscape of our own mind. If we recognize this as our own projections, liberation is instantaneous.
These wrathful forms are the presence of our innate wisdom, the vivid form of our own wakefulness. We must recognize them as a reflection of our own mind. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.
All of us feel sparks of anger, flickers of passion, and twinges of jealousy during brief moments. From these seeds, we grow to become the jealous person. We say “this is what I am” and we act accordingly. But these are just our masks and we forget that we are wearing them. We run from the masks that others wear. The wrathful spiritual entities are our own mind and it is impossible to run away from them. They are the sharpness of our own clarity. They are all in our mind.
Then altogether and all at once, the peaceful and wrathful spiritual entities come before us. If we do not recognize them as our own projections, then they transform into the terrifying image of the Lord of Death. This too is our own projection. But if we don’t accept that, our fear and turmoil force us to wander on in terror to the spiritual state of rebirth. We leave the spiritual state of the nature of mind. Again we are lost and wandering, so now we seek to end our suffering by being born into a solid and familiar place.
Now in the spiritual state of rebirth, all our senses have become extremely acute. Our consciousness is like a body without substance. In this body, we can, by a mere thought, travel to anywhere. As if we have miraculous powers, we can pass through mountains and circle the universe. We can enter anywhere but nowhere can we rest.
In the pain of our endless wandering, the thought of being born now promises great relief. We can still see our family, but we no longer know we are with them. We are driven on the winds of hope and fear like a leaf that is carried in the wind.
If we are still unable to recognize our own nature, our anger, lust and confusion become ever more intense, ever more solid. They at last appear to us as entire realms where we may stop and dwell. The image of our former body becomes faint and the image of our future body becomes clear. Any birth seems better than his current pain.
Since everyone is caught in these spiritual states of suffering, what can we do? People make hell realms out of their own anger. They make worlds out of passion. We project our emotional states and believe it is the real world. But no matter what, everyone longs for compassion. Everyone wishes to be awake. The best thing is to develop genuine compassion for all living things and for ourselves too. If we do not truly care for others we cannot know our own mind. We can have lofty insights and pure impulses, but then return to our old habits without even noticing it. We must work all the time to open our hearts and look for the truth. Otherwise there is neither understanding nor a purpose for understanding. Also, as life goes by, it is a good idea to keep your sense of humor.
We are now coming to the end of our journey. As we reach the end of the spiritual state of rebirth, the features of the world we are to enter will become very clear to us. If we pay attention now, we will find our way to a favorable rebirth.
We are now on the path to rebirth. We must choose carefully where we are to be born. In all the possibilities that are present before us, we must choose our new life. If we choose a good human birth in a good place, we can continue on the path of recognizing our own mind. Even though we are desperate for a home, a dark cave in a forest can lead to a birth in the animal realm. If we are consumed by yearning, the realm of hungry ghosts can become a never-ending realm of hunger and thirst for us. Rage, bitterness, and anger open all the images of hell. It is best to avoid the extremes of pleasure or pain when selecting a new birth. It is best to be born where we can still recognize the luminous essence of our own mind.
We will not remember much of our journey when we are born again. It will be like starting out new. Though death is always something to be mourned, being born is not something to be celebrated. There is an old saying: “When we are born, we cry, but the whole world is overjoyed. When we die, the world cries and we can become overjoyed when we find the great liberation.”
*Source: Kevin Williams, http://www.near-death.com/religion/buddhism/commentary.html

Even after all this time
the sun never says to the Earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.”
~ Hafiz

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness,
the astonishing light of your own being.”
~ Hafiz

“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.”
~ Rumi

“If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi

“You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6

You are the sun in drag.

You are the sun in drag.
You are God hiding from yourself.
Remove all the “mine” – that is the veil.
Why ever worry about
Anything?
Listen to what your friend Hafiz
Knows for certain:
The appearance of this world
Is a Magi’s brilliant trick, though its affairs are
Nothing into nothing.
You are a divine elephant with amnesia
Trying to live in an ant
Hole.
Sweetheart, O sweetheart
You are God in
Drag!

‬Ron’s Commentary on Sufi Master Hafiz.
I am privileged to share with you the foregoing poem by Iran’s favorite poet, 14th century Sufi master Hafiz (Hafez). Just as many Western people keep copies of the Bible in their homes, many Persian people keep copies of Hafiz’ writings which they consider the pinnacle of Persian literature.
Written in Farsi, this poem was expertly translated to English by Daniel Ladinsky. Yet my Iranian friends say that to be fully appreciated it must be read as originally composed.
But even for those of us who do not understand Farsi, the timeless genius of this poem, as translated, enriches and enlightens our hearts.
May we joyously join Hafiz in heartfelt gratitude as this Master poet importunes us:“Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.
Join my eyes and soul in their divine applause.”
~ Hafiz
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner